The Lone Wanderer-Addressing a few things

Hey everyone,

I wasn’t planning to write this post at this time, but some unforeseen circumstances prompted me to go ahead with it.

First, a quick update: Due to a scheduling error, chapter 263 was accidentally posted early alongside chapter 233. I caught and removed it within 40 minutes, but my apologies to those who saw spoilers. I triple-check chapter numbers and dates when I schedule them, so I’m genuinely unsure how this happened. Rest assured, chapter 234 will go up at the usual time tomorrow.

With that aside, I wanted to address a few things. Not to argue with anyone, but to clarify my thought process in a bunch of areas.

First of all, I want to thank everyone who has given this story a chance and who has stuck with it for over 200 chapters. I appreciate all the time you guys have invested in it, and I hope you’ve enjoyed the journey as much as I have. Your support truly means a lot to me.

I know some of you didn’t like certain parts of the story, and this is what this post is largely about. I wanted to reply to your comments back when the Rambert chapter dropped, but I held myself back for a few reasons.

It’s not easy to reply to everyone like I used to at the start of the story. The comments go on for several pages, and mine would easily get lost in there. On top of that, I know most of you would prefer that I spend my time actually writing the story than talking about it.

Finally, I feel that anything I say in the comment section is inevitably going to be a minor spoiler, no matter how carefully I phrase it. Even something as innocent-sounding as “keep reading to see how this goes” can easily give clues away. Overall, I believe that the comment section is largely a reader space, and me participating in it can often take away more than it adds.

But that’s not to say I don’t read your comments.

I take your feedback very seriously, and I use it to constantly improve myself. So, please, keep it coming 😊

There are also things I want to say, but which I consciously hold back. For example, I very much wanted to address some of the criticism around the Rambert plotline, but I didn’t want to spoil the ending for people. Now that the book is over, I might as well talk about that, and a few other things that haven’t landed very well.

Let me make one thing clear. I know you guys don’t like cockroach villains that come back after being defeated, so I understand why so many of you were upset. In fact, I very much share the sentiment. I read LitRPGs, and progression fantasy, and cultivation stories too, you know! This is how I ended up doing this in the first place!

But this wasn’t what this was. I just couldn’t tell you that when you guys started lashing out, because I’d be giving the plot away.

The plan had always been to have Percy turn him into a clone. This was one of the main reasons why I had Percy experiment with local clones back in book 1. Percy told you his plan was to infiltrate House Tantalus since the beginning of book 2. This was why he and Nesha even settled in Bogside town. It’s why they chose to stay after the residents snitched on them. Because Percy knew he hadn’t achieved his main goal yet, and possessing a high-ranking member of House Tantalus was his best shot at that.

This didn’t come out of nowhere, and I’d planted several clues throughout those chapters. I made it clear that Micky was starving, and yet I never mentioned him eating Rambert or Grian’s souls in the aftermath. Percy can inflict more damage by turning his weapons incorporeal, but I specifically had him focus on physical attacks during the fight. I even specifically wrote Percy gazing at Rambert’s crumbling soul at the end! When Rambert drained that frog, I made it clear that his situation wasn’t improving.

Rambert was still clearly mad at Percy and Nesha – of course he was, since they ambushed him and killed him. That wouldn’t just go away because Percy patched him up. But he understood his only shot as survival had been to play along.

I took great care when writing all those chapters, to make sure everything was consistent with their character motivations, their goals, and the way their abilities worked.

And here’s the weirdest thing.

Many of you did notice all those clues and even pointed them out. But for some reason, many of you just assumed they were inconsistencies. Plotholes. That I’d gone crazy overnight – rather than just reaching the obvious conclusion that Rambert was a clone.

Sure, I left out Percy and Rambert’s explicit thoughts on this to leave some suspense hanging in the air, but nothing they said, thought or did contradicted the dynamic between them. I was super careful with that.

I understand why some people didn’t like it. They weren’t sure this would end in a satisfying way. Waiting 2 weeks for the conclusion didn’t help. I suppose the format of a web serial didn’t do me any favours.

But this isn’t just a web serial. It’s going to be released as a book too at some point. This story will be running for a couple years at least, and anyone who gets to that part from here on out will have access to the rest of the book too, so I have to think about that.

I’m not going to shy away from what I personally think is a good plot or a good twist, just because it won’t make sense until the end, or because it’s not immediately satisfying.

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Your opinions are still your opinions, and I value them. And if I agree with your feedback, I’m willing to go back and make even major changes to the book. In fact, I’ve recently gone back and changed a couple of Patreon chapters after noticing a minor plot hole (you guys won’t be affected by it because I fixed it before you got to that point).

But the Rambert thing isn’t like that.

I’m happy with how I wrote it and how it reads, and I’m sticking with it. I might make a bunch of minor changes to the chapter when I’m editing it for the amazon release, but I don’t think I’ll delete or move the chapter entirely. I don’t see any plot hole in it that needs to be closed.

At the end of the day, I have to put my own vision first and foremost.

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It’s not about me being stubborn either. I’m a reader of my book as much as I am a writer. I write what I want to read, and this is my passion project. It’s what motivates me to keep writing 7 days a week and to keep going even when putting words on a page is tough.

This all hinges on me writing what I like, so I won’t change something I like into something I dislike, because that will instantly affect my ability to write.

If some of you aren’t happy with that and don’t want to keep reading… fair enough. I thank you again for staying with the story for so long. I appreciate it very much. But some people liked how the book ended, and they might be the ones disappointed if I went back and changed it.

Writing to my own taste will ultimately allow me to put higher quality content out there.

The Rambert thing was easily the most controversial thing to date, but there have been a few other notable recurring issues in the past 200 chapters, so I might as well explain why I wrote them the way I wrote them. Again, it doesn’t mean my opinion is right and yours wrong. It just means that I had my reasons for making those decisions.

This one is actually a bit funny, because I got a ton of backlash from opposite ends of the spectrum. Some people called him a murder hobo and wrote some scathing critique when he killed that guy in the Guild. Meanwhile, others complained that Percy was being too nice, quick to forgive his family and to help everyone he meets in his travels.

I just wanted to write a real person. Not a monster, but not a saint either. He cares about his own interests, but he won’t just abandon a dying orphan he meets in his travels. He is pissed about his family withholding elixirs from him, but he understands why they did it and he won’t just destroy their precious tree and throw them under the bus. He understands that guy in the Guild was just out hunting, but he also cares about Micky and he won’t let his friend get killed.

Imagine you walked out of your house and saw somebody chasing down your friend, shooting at him with a gun. Would you try and talk the assailant down? Would you bet both your friend’s safety, and your own, on this random guy being reasonable? Or would you do whatever you could to save your friend?

The guy in the Guild was at Yellow and much stronger than Percy at the time. Say what you will, but I think him choosing to attack him was a reasonable response, given the circumstances.

Maybe it’s not what you would have done in his shoes. And maybe it’s not what I would have done either. But none of us grew up in this cutthroat world either, nor have we spent years living with Micky being our only family.

I promised you a morally grey character, and I do my best to deliver exactly that, with every single chapter. Again, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s what I want to write.

Another pretty controversial chapter was when they hooked up a few weeks ago. Here’s the thing. This isn’t a romance story. I don’t particularly like romance stories, and I have no interest in writing romance. Romance will never be front and centre in this story. It’s not what I want to write, and it’s not what most of you want to read. There was never a chance of me doing an over-dramatized thing of them flirting back and forth and playing games with one another.

Now, there are people who’ll say “if you don’t want to focus on a relationship, then don’t write it at all”. In fact, people have said that, if you go and read the comments on that chapter.

My response to that, is no.

Percy and Nesha are people. Young people in their early twenties, living together in a small house for years, hidden in some corner of the world with nothing to lose. In my opinion, it would have been much stranger if they hadn’t hooked up.

As I see it, that’s just part of life. I thought that was a realistic depiction of a relationship too. I don’t think it has to be a flashy thing, with romantic dates, and constant flirting, and giving each other flowers. I think it could very well just happen, like it has. Just something on the side, adding flavour to the story.

Again, I understand some people will be unhappy there was any romance at all. And there will be people who wanted more of it. But this was how much I wanted to write, and again, this is how I have to operate here.

Still. By all means, tell me your opinion. I want to hear it. But don’t expect me to go back and change everything you don’t like. Frankly, I like how that chapter reads too.

The petal was always intended to go to Micky. But I wanted it to start off as something useful for Percy. A direct upgrade of his pure affinity. Something to get people excited about. And for him to slowly outgrow the need for it, by learning to use his pure affinity better, until he decided to hand it to his familiar.

This was the plan, and I feel the finished product accomplishes that, more or less.

Granted, there are some people who didn’t want him to get the petal from day 1. Though I’m not sure that was warranted. Before he had Crystallization and his armour, I feel the water affinity had been a pretty clear winner.

There are also those of you who wanted Percy to reflect on it before the end of the book, much like the Rambert thing. Personally, I feel the story reads better if I don’t always give everything away instantly, and I leave some suspense hanging in the air.

Once again, I’m not trying to defend my decisions here. Opinions are subjective, and if you don’t like something, I can’t just convince you to like it with a few words. I’m just trying to explain why I made those decisions, and why I’ve stuck with them. Why it’s so important for me to stay true to my creative vision, and why I think it’s better for the story too. Even if the alternative was objectively better, I wouldn’t be able to write it as well, if it didn’t fit my taste.

Anyway…

The Lone Wanderer is intended to be a 10+ book series with over 1000 chapters. Maybe a lot more than that. At least, that has been my goal since the day I conceived it, and continues to be as such today. It’s possible that things will change down the line, but this is where I’m currently at.

I’m glad so many people have enjoyed it so far, but I’d likely continue to write it regardless. I love Percy’s story, and I’m way too invested in it to give up. Even if there was nobody else reading it, I can’t stomach the thought of leaving it unfinished.

So, just keep that in mind if you’re wondering why Percy is still at Orange 200 chapters in.

I have a ton of things planned, and believe me, alchemy and runecrafting, and everything else he’s spending his time on is no less important than the grade of his cores. You’ll understand why, eventually…

Thanks again for everyone who stuck around for so long! See you all tomorrow!